On Friday, the Virar police registered a case and booked a stepbrother and sister-in-law of a 16-year-old Vasai-based girl for allegedly forcing her into prostitution.
Chennai’s child welfare committee (CWC) rescued the 16-year-old girl some days back. Police sources told the leading daily, the girl, who was seven-months pregnant, had been handed over to the Palghar district CWC. Initially, after the Virar police handed over the case to the Manikpur police, the latter found that she was a Vasai resident. After a team of police officials reached the location, she told them that her stepbrother and sister-in-law forced her into prostitution, and they used to send her to nearby guesthouses and hotels with unknown men daily.
She further added that once they had even forced her to sleep with a man at their Vasai residence. Cops then registered a case in the matter and transferred the case to the Virar police station on June 28 for further investigation. Sub-inspector Ranjit Singh Pardesi told the Mid-Day, “The victim was not being able to speak properly. So based on whatever we understood of what she told us, a case has been registered against her brother and his wife. As the girl is pregnant, we have sent her to a correction home under the Borivli CWC. Search is on for the accused.”
The case was registered under sections 370(a) (exploitation of a trafficked person) and 376(3) (punishment for rape — whoever commits rape on a woman under 16 years of age shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 20 years) of IPC and various sections of the POCSO Act.
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